Our windows are closed, but I still hear the birds twittering in the dark before the sun rises. Spring is here! My heart radiates when I wake to the sound of birdsong after months of cold silence.

I wish it were warm enough to open the house and let the fresh air in. Soon. Maybe even this afternoon. Definitely tomorrow.

Right now it’s barely above freezing, though. I sit on the love seat in sweatpants and a hoodie. If it were light out, I’d sit in the chair by the window. That seat sat vacant most of the winter, but now that the grass is a lush emerald carpet, and new ruby growth sprouts on the rose bushes, and now that I’ve filled the bird baths for blue jays and sparrows and doves to splash around in, I find myself sitting by the window once again during the light of day. I especially like to sit there in the late afternoon, after work. That’s usually when the birds like to duck in the bath and shake the water off their wings, over and over again.

This past weekend, I filled our flower baskets, so now I can watch those from the chair by the window, too. Out front I bought fresh coconut liners for the narrow baskets that hang from the railing on the stair landings. I filled them with fresh soil and stuffed them full of variegated vinca vine, purple kale, and tangerine violas whose delicate petals quiver in the mountain breezes.

On the back porch, I planted another narrow basket with garnet snapdragons and yellow pansies with wine dark centers, and I filled a hanging basket with as many velvety burgundy pansies as I could pack in it, along with vinca vines that will hopefully cascade gracefully over the sides when they get big enough.

I sit at the table by the sliding glass door at lunch and watch the flowers. They reach for the sun and flutter when the air moves. Birds land in the hanging basket and pull coconut fibers for their nests.

The world outside is so fresh and tender right now. Sky blue, spring green. New leaves are young and chartreuse and unmarred. Dew glitters like diamonds on blades of grass.